EDITOR'S CHOICE -- SCOTT SUTTELL

The devil, you say? These Cleveland-Marshall law profs think so

“A group of law professors in Cleveland are claiming that their dean likened them to the devil by awarding them merit raises of $666,” The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reports, in an item first reported by TaxProf Blog.

“The Cleveland State University chapter of the American Association of University Professors claims the dean of Cleveland-Marshall law school retaliated against faculty members who led the effort to unionize,” The Journal says. “The $666 raises those professors received was no accident, but an unholy message to faculty, the complaint says. The union says other professors received raises that were not only much larger but free of Satanic symbolism.”

A spokesperson for the law school had no immediate comment. According to TaxProfBlog, in its response to the unfair labor practice charge, the university said: “(T)he Charging Party cannot point to a single directive, or even a reference, from the Dean to a '666′ or satanic merit pay amount for certain allegedly union-active faculty members. The $666 merit award was the result of mathematical division, not anti-union animus.”

Dr. Guyuron and his colleagues “showed the photos to three trained judges, then asked them to grade each person's wrinkles and age-related facial features,” according to the news services. The twins were in their late 40s, on average, and about 75% of them were women.

Forty-five sets of twins included one smoker and one non-smoker, Reuters says. Smokers “tended to have more wrinkles and other signs of face aging,” though the differences often were small.

For instance, on a 0-to-3 scale, where 0 means no wrinkles and 3 is severe wrinkles, “upper eyelids were rated at 1.56 among smokers and 1.51 among non-smokers,” according to the story. “Jowls were rated at 1.0 among smokers and 0.93 among non-smokers, on average.”

However, “Judges who didn't know which twin smoked said the smoker looked older 57 percent of the time,” Reuters reports. “That pattern held when both twins were smokers but one had smoked for many years longer than the other.:

The bottom line: "Smoking makes you look old. That's all there is to it," says Dr. Elizabeth Tanzi, a dermatologist at the Washington Institute of Dermatologic Laser Surgery and George Washington University Medical Center. She was not involved in the new study but “said it confirms what she and others see in practice,” Reuters adds.

This and that

What's that you say?: A beta project called Dear City aims to get urban dwellers to “share their opinions about what their burg is doing wrong, and less frequently what it's getting right,” according to this post from TheAtlanticCities.com.

The online service began last year for just Copenhagen “and has since expanded to more than 80 cities with a repository of nearly 1,200-plus 'thoughts' displayed as anonymous Post-it notes, the website reports.

The messages are fun to read. And you can be a true urban pioneer: No one has posted any comments yet about Cleveland.

Bring us your young: The praise is a little faint, but Cleveland makes this BusinessInsider.com list of the “20 most underrated cities for 20-somethings.”

Cities were rated by AreaVibes.com on a combination of factors — proximity to amenities, cost of living, crime rates, educational facilities, the local labor market, the housing market, and weather.

On top of that, BusinessInsider.com concocted something called the Shiftless Millennial City Index, or SMCI. That index is based on the amount of parkland, number of large music venues per capita, number of bars per capita, how many people are single, access to public transportation and cost of living.

The assessment of Cleveland, ranked No. 19 on the underrated list, reads as follows:

Even though Cleveland is only average on the SMCI, AreaVibes hates the city — Cleveland is the third lowest ranked city in the group. Cleveland's saving graces on the SMCI are its decent public transportation, large number of single people, and low cost of living.

However, a lack of bars, parks and concert venues limits Cleveland's potential as a destination for the young and reckless.

A “lack of bars, parks and concert venues?” Doesn't sound like this city.

“Steve Capus is collaborating with two political pros on an awareness campaign for the band that enthralled him when he attended their concert as a 16-year-old in Philadelphia in 1979,” the Associated Press reports. “The team is already halfway there: Yes is one of 16 candidates for enshrinement next year, its first time nominated.”

Mr. Capus, who after leaving NBC last spring has done consulting work in communications and plans to teach journalism and management, tells the AP, “I don't want people to think I've completely lost my mind. This isn't my new career. I've got the luxury of some time on my hands and the ability to do some projects that I believe in and have some fun doing.”

He's leading a campaign to build a groundswell among fans and is producing a film extolling Yes' virtues to Rock Hall voters, the AP says. Mr. Capus attended a “Yestival” in New Jersey and went to Cleveland with the band to conduct interviews.

Of the campaign, Joel Peresman, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, tells the AP, “I love the passion.” But he says the Rock Hall doesn't publicly identify its voters, preferring they make a judgment unswayed by campaigns.

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